Creepers Live: My Elevated Stalking Situation

Setting: My place of work. I work in a deli as a cook/baker etc. It is a nice job with good pay and flexible hours so I can do my ceramics mumbo jumbo on the side. I have worked there for a few years, since the store itself opened. I am very pretty in real life, but luckily this job allows me to hide in a giant white coat and stuff my hair under a hat so not a lot of lady hungry dudes can tell that there is a gorgeous unicorn slaving away doing manly man things like chopping up stinky fresh caught fish.

Since opening day, a man we will refer to as ‘Peeping Tom’ has come in multiple times during my shifts every single day to creep on me. Here are some of things he does:

1. Leers at me creepily from behind the salad bar.

2. Asks me creepy questions like where I live, what my last name is, if I have ‘relations’ with other workers, and if I think he is cute, or if he can send me presents or take me on scary trips to Nebraska.

3. Makes creepy unwarranted comments like ‘Nobody loves me!’ ‘I got punched in the face by a woman!’

4. Stands behind large indoor plants out of my view and eaves drops on my conversations with other workers and then asks me about it later. (SO IS THAT NISSAN YOURS?!)

5. Bought a matching car to mine. I can’t tell if he did this so I would notice or if he just didn’t want to be able to drive around when it blizzards anymore.

6. HAS SURVIVED 3 YEARS LIVING IN A FUCKING NURSING HOME. Honestly, who doesn’t just give up and die in the first 6 months? The average nursing home stay is something like 168 days. I wonder other things like… why does someone who still drives and walks around without looking like an awkward bird choose to live in a nursing home?

7. Has called the store multiple times pretending to be my dad or grandpa. Asks other co workers about me.

8. Waltzes behind the deli counter (And other employees only ares) like he fucking owns the place and claims he can because he has a tattoo of jesus.

9. Watches me through the window when I’m not looking/pretending not to notice.

10. Everything else.

So. Do I have a case? Apparently not. According to managers and police alike, I can’t really do anything until he ‘crosses the line’ like show up at my dwelling, because making me feel unsafe at my place of work and walking to and from work isn’t crossing far enough across this god forsaken line. Even when multiple customers point out that they think the sweet girl who gives them all their stupid gluten free muffins is being stalked, the line is still apparently uncrossed.

My boyfriend says he can hang out and punch him in the face, but I don’t want my boyfriend going to jail for punching an old man in the face.

The sad part is that only about one third of the people I talk to about this can pick up on the severity of the situation. And unfortunately only about 5 people in this large group of people that I ramble to are dudes. Most of the dudes I tell don’t think it’s an issue because they do creeping of their own. CREEPING IS NOT OKAY AND IT IS NOT THE WAY INTO A GIRLS HEART AND/OR VAGINA.

Let me repeat myself:

CREEPING IS NOT OKAY AND IT IS NOT THE WAY INTO A GIRLS HEART AND/OR VAGINA.

What the fuck am I going to do. WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO.

Juice Cleanse: The Farce and its Victims.

As mentioned, I am a ‘Natural Foods Connoisseur’. My current employment requires this so they have their own certifying program. That means I get to sit through lectures about the odds and ends of homeopathy, poopy soy products, and why it’s always important for a chicken to be happy and cage-free before you slaughter it. (You also shouldn’t put eggs in cages because apparently cage-free eggs are MUCH better for you, me, and our pal earth.)

Phase 1: On the sales floor, it’s my job to educate customers and eventually get them to purchase some unnecessary  wellness product or some overpriced free-range rib eye steaks. Lately, my education efforts have gone towards these rather rotund women on some weird ‘juice’ cleanse where the juice is actually lemon water, honey and cayenne pepper. They usually use the “I’m just doing this to be healthier.” Line, when I think it may just translate to “I am a fat and frequently try fad diets.”

Phase 2: The lemon-honey-cayenne-water will do nothing except MAYBE cleanse a few organs. Otherwise, if you aren’t eating anything with it, you become irritable and unpleasant and no one wants to be your friend. My next step is to convince the customer to buy an actual fresh juice which is made by shoving vegetables through this huge scary loud juicer that is near impossible to clean. (Beats… apples… carrots…lemons… cucumber…etc.)

Phase 3: Although the fresh juiced juice that I made for this poor gullible woman is now packed with 20 times more nutrients than her wannabe-tea concoction, she is still losing out on some valuable calorie burning. She could have just eaten the 2 pounds of produce I put through the juicer and had almost two meals worth. And because they would have been whole vegetables and fruits, her body would have burned more calories eating/digesting them than it just did slurping the 7$ juice down. (If there are red beats in the juice, their poop will be pink.)

Because I do not know the names of the countless women and men who do this everyday (Spend 7$ on a puny cup of juice…) I must hope they stumble upon this post and never fall for the fresh juice farce ever again.